


I just wanted to help

by Crowrey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowrey/pseuds/Crowrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the first fanfic I've written in a long while, and it's the very first about Crowley. I've got a main storyline figured out and I'll keep adding to it as I'm writing more. Enjoy!</p></blockquote>





	1. Summoning a Demon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fanfic I've written in a long while, and it's the very first about Crowley. I've got a main storyline figured out and I'll keep adding to it as I'm writing more. Enjoy!

Every start of October for the past few years, I’d read warnings for people to keep their black cats inside around Halloween. I could never really imagine people going so far as to kill cats just because it was Halloween and these particular animals were associated with dark forces or something, but I now realise why you should keep your black cat inside at _all_ times. It appears not to be a coincidence that it’s particularly black cats that get killed so often.

You know about all the evil stuff black cats are connected to? Turns out those things are true. Nowadays, people think you’re insane when you talk about angels, demons, and all the other things that go bump in the night. That doesn’t mean they’re not real, though. Forget what people say or think. These things are real. And where do the black cats fit in? Well, mostly their bones are used in rituals, like summoning certain beings. They also get used in witchcraft. These things are the reason they get killed so much compared to other cats.

Luckily I knew about something called the internet so I wouldn’t have to go out at night to kill some poor unsuspecting black cat for just one of its bones. I wondered about how many people did do exactly that. I just ordered it online, though. It was kind of pricy, but I would have been unable to do it any other way. On the bright side, it had been delivered within 5 days.

I thought about the fact that maybe I’ve gone insane for even considering what I’m about to do. But I had to do it. With all that’s happened, it’s the very least I could. And, I mean, what’s really the worst that could happen? I’m not particularly afraid to die.

I’ve been feeling a kind of dumb lately. Usually, I would have considered myself quite clever but in the light of recent and upcoming events, I’ve been almost incapable of acting or thinking the way I normally do. I suppose it must be the nerves.

\----

In my hand I held a small piece of yellowy paper. A handwriting that could be recognised as that of an old person told me the ingredients I needed for the ritual. It’d cost me over 50 bucks. A description of what exactly I’d be summoning and how I should definitely not go about it, had come with it. Like the old lady said, I needed it and I knew she was the only reliable source as far as my knowledge on the subject went. So of course, I’d paid.

I put the paper down next to a sheet that held about ten small photos of myself and got some scissors to cut out one of them. Now, according to the paper, I only needed some graveyard dirt and then a box to put everything in. I found a wooden box in one of my cupboards that I put the picture and the bone in, so all that was left was a trip to the cemetery before I could go visit the crossroads at night.

I got into my car and set out to retrieve the last ingredient on the list. Luckily (if I should be calling it ‘lucky’ at all), I knew a lot of dead people. Since most everybody in my town knew each other, nobody suspected anything weird when I went to the graveyard and sat down at one of the tombstones. While discretely scooping some dirt into my box, I noticed my hands were shaking. I was more terrified than had been willing to admit to myself.

After that I got back into the car and rested my arms and head on the steering wheel for a long while. Then I decided to just drive around until dark so I could try and relax a bit before I went to the crossroads. I’d picked a random place somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully wouldn’t be any people coming by. There stood some trees in one corner and I parked my car next to them. I turned off the lights and got the box and a flashlight out of the glove department. I then took a deep breath before stepping out onto the gravel.

It was a chilly night, and a quiet breeze gave me goose bumps, though I wasn’t sure they were really because of the cold. I walked to the middle of the road and dug a hole with my hands, just big enough to fit the wooden box into. I doubted for a small while, like you always do when you know you’re about to do something you maybe shouldn’t be doing. But I decided that since I’d come this far, it’d be stupid to turn back now. After covering the box back up with the gravel, I stood up and waited, listening to the almost inaudible whispers of the wind.

After a while I started to wonder if perhaps something had gone wrong. I could have misplaced the box.. or maybe the cat’s bone wasn’t actually from a black cat? Add to this doubt the chilly feel of the air and my lack of knowledge about anything _evil_ , and I decided to go sit in the car to review the pieces of paper just to be sure. But as I reached the car I heard two hushed voices that seemed to be having an argument. I stopped dead in my tracks and, for a moment, thought I should have chosen another crossroads because obviously some other people were here now. But then it hit me; I hadn’t even heard them coming. Surely while waiting for any sign that the ritual had worked, I would have noticed it even if somebody had just come walking toward the crossroad?

Then I heard a man’s voice shouting; "OUT!", and everything went quiet. The only thing I could hear after a moment was somebody’s loud breathing. It was obvious he’d been angry. I was afraid to breathe, myself, and so I waited to see what would happen.

The man had been standing behind my car from where I was, and I hadn’t been able to see him. That is, until he slowly got out from behind it, his eyes fixed on mine. His hands were busy fixing his tie as he kept looking at me and said;

"Hello, darling."

After he finished fixing his tie, he raised an eyebrow and cocked his head, a kind of odd smile on his lips.

"Well, then. Aren’t you going to introduce yourself to the _King of Hell_?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's the beginning of our story! There's still lots to be discovered in the next couple of chapters. Feel free to review or just simply comment, because anything you have to say will be very helpful! I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading <3


	2. Making a deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and 'Miss Parker' talk making a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time, we ended where our main character met 'the King of Hell'. Who the hell is that, anyway? And what does our lady want from him? Let's find out..

I felt all the blood drain from my face, that is; if there had even been any left. My mind was racing with thoughts from panic to confusion, then to excitement and back to panic again. I’d never heard of the term ‘King of Hell’ before.

“K-king of Hell as in.. Satan?”

“Luckily, no. Rookie mistake. Lucifer’s locked up in a cage somewhere with his buddy Michael. I, my dear, am Crowley. I run Hell.” 

His eyebrows shot up and he had a tiny but clearly distinguishable smile on his face when he mentioned the last part, his mouth not completely closed, and upper teeth still visible. I thought this seemed to fit with his face quite well, and wondered how long I’d have to deal with looking at his face because overall, he looked relatively smug about himself.

I was quiet for a moment, as I couldn’t quite comprehend all that was happening. I’d tried to summon a crossroads demon, but somehow the ‘King of Hell’ had heard my call?

“Who was that just now?” I decided to ask, wondering about the other I’d heard him shout to.

“Just a low-ranking demon. You’re far better off with me, I promise.”

I kind of doubted that I’d be better off with the King of Hell than with a low-ranking demon, but I decided to keep my mouth shut and just act as if everything was just peachy. Deciding not to let any awkward pauses enter the conversation, I tried to think of something to say. My mind always failed me at the most crucial moments, though, and this wasn’t an exception. The King of Hell lowered one eyebrow, slightly moved his head to the right and squinted his eyes at me.

“Are you going to introduce yourself to me, miss Parker, or are we going to stand here until one of us dies? I don’t have a lot of patience so I suggest we get going.”

It seemed he only said this to keep on going as he obviously knew my name already and so I discarded his question and went on to question him about who exactly he was. After all, I had a goal and I wanted to be sure I could achieve what I set out to do.

“So are you a demon as well? Or are you like.. Lucifer?”

I wondered whether it was only possible to rule Hell if you were some kind of fallen angel like Lucifer had been. I might not have known everything about Heaven or Hell, but I had been raised listening to Biblical stories and figured they must at least be slightly close to the truth.

“It appears you do know _some_ things, at least. And yes, I am a demon. Formerly, King of the Crossroads, up-ranked to King of Hell when Lucy was thrown into the cage. But enough about me, let’s talk you from now on. Why did you summon me here?”

“I.. I need your help.”

As I’d been mostly worried about the fact that I’d been busy trying to summon a demon in the first place, I hadn’t spent too much time thinking about how I wanted to explain the situation. This guy just looked at me expectantly and so I just started telling him why I needed to make a deal.

“I need to make a deal. You see.. there’s these people I know, right, and there have been some problems between us and I’ve kind of been acting dumb and it’s not like I blame myself for anything but I just get so thoughtless when I’m stressing a lot you see so I’ve said some stupid things, and I did some weird stuff, though I swear it was just because I was trying to help you know so it’s not like I’m mean or anything, like I didn’t mean to hurt anybody but these things just happen you know, …”

My voice silently trailed off when I saw how bored and confused he was by everything I was saying, and I realised I wasn’t making too much sense anyway. I tended to talk about everything and nothing when I got nervous, and somewhere along the way I even forgot what the point was in the first place.

I took a deep breath, and felt a gush of cold wind blow my hair before my eyes. I shivered and saw goose bumps appear on my arms. ‘Crowley’ (was that his whole name?) didn’t seem bothered, and since his dark hair was just about as short as that of my English teacher when I was still in high school, there was nothing about him that showed we were standing in the same surroundings. Back to the subject, I didn’t even need to tell him the extra information. He probably wouldn’t be interested, and there’s no need to waste more time babbling about it.

“It’s really.. I..

I was wondering whether you could help some people for me.”

His eyebrows shot up, and some wrinkles showed on his forehead. “’Help’? Sure you don’t want to have the voice of an angel, or get dear Fluffy back from the dead? I could give you the world, darling, long as you ask me for it.” he said, smiling a cheeky smile.

How much _exactly_ did he know about me that I wasn’t aware of – especially since he knew the name of my first pet? Granted, it’s a terrible clichéd name, but hey, I was a kid and that’s just the kind of name to give your bunny. That’s beside the point, though, and I wondered whether he was able to look into my head in some way. I needed to keep focussed on what I was doing without getting side-tracked, so I decided to drop it for now. I wouldn’t be seeing him after this, anyway.

“No, just helping them is all I want.”

 He shrugged slightly. "And what does our princess want for these 'people' of hers?" 

"Make them happy. Be creative." I really couldn't have thought of anything else to explain what I wanted for them. They deserved to be happy.

"All right. If that's all you'll leave me with, I'll do a  _hell_ of a job, promise. Now, to seal the deal." 

He started to walk over towards me, and I knew this is the part where we had to kiss to make everything 'official'. Now, here he wouldn't be able to call me a 'rookie'. I was good at this. There was one thing we hadn't covered, however.

"Hang on.. what do you get from me? I mean.." Of course, I already knew that I'd die in a number of years. This wasn't the problem, as I was not expected to live much more than that any way. But it was always good to ask in the case there was something I didn't know of.

"You die in ten years. I'll even have my pup come fetch you for me." He stopped in front of me.

"Ok." I answered, thinking I was definitely okay with just dying in ten years.

I looked down at the gravel, taking a step toward him. I put a hand on his right shoulder and slowly moved my head up to look him in the eye. I had no idea how much this moved him, or whether it did at all. But I didn't care, and just did what I'd always done. All the while looking into his eyes, I bit my lower lip and leaned in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And.. that's it for chapter 2. 
> 
> So she told this Crowley-King-of-Hell-guy to be creative. Wonder how that's going to work out for them.
> 
> I just realised I've got _loads_ of ideas for Crowley, and lots of different scenarios and new characters that could fit into new fics. I keep constantly thinking of things that don't fit into this fic at all, but will make great moments in different scenarios.  
>  This means that each story I write for him, is partially me figuring out how Crowley works. Putting him, and my characters of course, in different settings and seeing how they interact. This also means that more than 80% of what you read in my fics are improvisation; me writing the story as it goes. What's most difficult is writing the characters, and making them act the way they actually would. But so far, so good, right? Let's see what I think about that in a couple chapters from now ;) 
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now the deal has been made, what will happen next?

Just as quickly as I’d heard the first noises of life, I heard the last as Crowley left immediately after the deal was sealed. I could still feel the cold breeze, still hear all the sounds of night and still barely see into the distance because of the dark. But without the presence of the demon, the night was very different; even from before. The nervousness I had felt had turned into tension that still lingered in the air after our conversation.

Speaking of the air, that cold breeze that was still around bothered me, so I quickly got into my car and started up the engine. I went over the conversation in my mind and realised it went much better than I’d expected. Not that I’d really known what to expect, since I didn’t actually know much about the ‘supernatural’ in the first place. But I thought it’d gone well either way.

I then drove home to my apartment, and sat in my living room chair for what felt like hours before I fell asleep right there.

The next two weeks were quite uneventful. I was kind of anxious that I might be confronted by the demon again for some kind of reason, but luckily nothing of the sort happened. The days went on just as normally as the days before I made the deal, only difference was is that I felt different. Which is kind of like when my best friend in high school came out to me as gay and was like _well, it’s always been this way, the only thing that’s different is that you now know more about me than you did yesterday_. After thinking about it I’d kind of just known already, but that’s not really the point.

But then I got up today and read the newspaper. At first I just thought _just another awful thing_ , you know, because these awful things happen quite a lot. Pretty much every month you hear news of some poor bastard being murdered, or children being kidnapped, women getting raped; and all these cases end up having these big lawsuits, and often the bad people are pitied, because of their past or whatever, and the victims just get forgotten. I doubt that this time, though, the victims will be forgotten.

There was some fluff surrounding all the details in the article, just simple storytelling from which you could tell there were actually very few details given away by the woman that claimed to have ‘seen’ the victims.

The deaths had taken place in an apartment building. When a visitor of the couple couldn’t get in, and after calling realised their phones were inside still (and lets face it, who ever leaves their phones at home when they’re out), he called the landlady who came over to open the door, but it appeared to be locked from the inside. So they called the police.

What it came down to is that it was probably a gruesome death, with blood and body parts all over the place. The police were still investigating and couldn’t give out any more juicy details.

The worst thing about everything was that I knew the people that had died. Luckily, **I** didn’t know them personally, so it didn’t really affect me emotionally. What freaked me out about the whole thing was that my ‘friends’ knew them as well. In fact, they didn’t like them much at all. It would probably make them quite _happy_ if they would be rid of them. And you could have called it quite a ‘creative’ death, if you had to believe what the paper said about the body parts that were all over the place. The door had been locked from the inside, and so there wasn’t any way for a human to have gotten inside without evidence..

I put the newspaper down and just paced around the living room. I thought about visiting my friends (I really should have stopped calling them friends by now), but realised that might get _me_ into trouble as I had expressed to them how much I wanted to help make it better; make up for the shit I had made them go through. And now people they didn’t quite like are dead.

And, to be honest, I was still dealing with it myself as well. Either way, I better stay clear of them for a long time. Never seeing them again would probably be the best.

I decided there wasn’t anything I could do, really; the people that had died (to put it nicely), weren’t going to come back to life just because I wanted them to, and I couldn’t go visit my ex-friends either. The only thing that I’d managed to do is to stop calling them my ‘friends’. So I just had to keep living my daily life. I’d been fired from my job at a clothing’s store at the mall, so there was not much to do other than read my novels, clean the house and look for job offers on the internet. Just like the last weeks. 

Until I realised something else. I had made a deal to make the lives of my friends better. To make them happy. I’d then proceeded to tell the demon to be creative. He was, obviously, the one responsible for the deaths. I hadn’t meant for him to kill anybody.. but I should have realised it was highly likely that he wouldn’t make daisies grow around my friends’ house and make the sun shine forever.

The demon was killing because of a deal I had made. Funnily, I skipped the feelings of guilt and immediately realised that I wasn’t exactly on my ex-friends’ happy-list either. And, of course, I’d have done better to not realised this at all, because as soon as I did, I heard that same voice as I’d first heard some weeks ago..

"Hello, darling."

Speak of the Devil, right? I’d still been pacing back and forth, but I stopped dead in my tracks, and probably looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a positively ginormous truck. He looked exactly the same, wearing a black suit and a dark tie to go with it. He wore the same look on his face and stood with one hand in his pocket.

"Well, well. Been thinking about me, have we?"

"Uh."

"Don’t seem the brightest light sometimes, do you?

Well, that aside, I am here to come finish our deal.”

"W-what are you going to do to me?"

My body had gone completely tense and I stood waiting for at least ages before he talked again. He moved his head slightly, squinted his eyes and took a step towards me, looking straight at my face. I looked away as the floor was suddenly much more interesting than it ever had been.

"There is a little problem. I would have easily killed you, of course; if it just wasn’t for our little deal. So we are going to have to think of something else to make your _lover_ and his Wife think you’ll finally be gone forever. They said they wanted to never have anything to do with you ‘ever again’, you know."

I really didn’t know what I had to say. I guess I wasn’t really surprised that they never wanted to see me again. Or that Crowley knew about it, for that matter.

"How about the north pole? Would look nice with your brown hair."

He gestured at my head and raised his eyebrows at the last part.

"I… what?"

He sighed and pronounced every next word as if I was a foreign child that didn’t understand anything. 

"We’ll move you."

"oh"

Wait, no no no.

"…What? I can’t move! I’ve lived here my whole life!"

He started walking up to me and I took a few steps back in reaction immediately, until I wasn’t able to move further. Curse my small apartment.

"Tough" he said, and gripped my arm tight.

"o…" my exclamation of pain was immediately drowned by the great noise of wind rushing past our ears as we suddenly stood outside. The cold I’d felt at the crossroads some weeks before, could now be called a hot summer’s day compared to this.

"If you look to your right, you might be able to see some dim lights in the distance. If not, you’ll just have to take my word that there’s people there. Good luck"

He was walking away before I’d even realised what was going on, and I stood there for a moment, looking back from him to the direction he’d indicated. I then panicked when I finally understood and ran after him as fast as I could in the cold.

"NO! PLEASE!  Take me with you, I don’t care where, just don’t leave me here! Take me! Anything but this!"

He stopped walking and I almost ran into him. I was so close that I could feel he wasn’t nearly as cold as me, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was him, and I wasn't in this position, I would have clung to him like it was the end of the world. He then squinted his eyes again, like the way he does, and asked,

"Anything?"

"Yes, please just get me out" my body was so cold I could hardly even see my breath any more.

"Very well."

The smirk on his face when he said that, told me it might be a good plan to think before I say things out loud. It was too late now to take it back though, and I knew he would take advantage of it.

I wasn’t wrong, though I might have underestimated where exactly he’d bring me, because I woke up in a room that was completely bare except for a door and a bed. The walls were a boring grey, the floor and ceiling were no different.

I didn’t remember what happened after the last words Crowley said, but my head felt like I had a terrible hangover, and I know he must have done something to either make me forget, or just put me down immediately. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading again! I hope to update each new chapter within about a week of updating the last, at the very most one and a half week.  
> Feel free to give any feedback so I can keep working on developing the story and characters as best as I can! <3


	4. Chapter 4

Well, if I thought I’d been bored the last few weeks at home, this was nothing compared to it. I could literally do nothing; the bed didn’t even have sheets so even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t kill myself with them. All I _could_ do was think about my existence and remember all the embarrassing things I’d ever done. And stupid things, like making a deal the way I did. What felt like hours were probably just minutes, and I didn’t have any clue how long I’d been in the room because there were no windows to indicate whether it was day or night-time. 

When the door opened for the first time, I thought I’d finally get some information about what the hell was going on, but a hand just shoved a bowl of soup into the room and the door was closed again immediately. I was so surprised that any movement had happened at all that it was already too late to look for attention. I doubt I would have gotten it, anyway. The soup was cold and tasted like liquid plastic mixed with metal. I shuddered to think what was in it, but it kind of filled me somewhat and so I didn’t give it too much thought. What felt like _ages_ later I got another bowl, and I figured maybe I was being fed once a day. Or twice a day and my perception of time was even worse than I initially thought it was.

When somebody finally came _in_ to my room, I studied him as if I’d never even seen a person before. It was a tall, hairless man with dark skin and muscles you’d almost hurt yourself just _looking_ at. He carried a wooden chair that didn’t look very comfortable at all, and then proceeded to make me go sit in it. I didn’t struggle, because let’s be honest, it would probably only make things worse for me. He then left, and to my surprise, it didn’t even feel like ages before Crowley walked in. Must have only been a couple minutes. I wondered if the door was even locked, and then why I hadn’t tried to open it, or even tried to think of opening it. Probably because I’d just completely accepted that there’s nothing I would be able to do to help myself out in this situation.

When he walked in, first he just seemed really focussed on doing just that: opening the door, stepping inside and carefully closing the door behind him again as if it were made of emotions. His hand and eyes lingered on the handle for a moment before he looked at me.

"So. ‘Anything’, eh?"

Of course, he knew full well that I’d just said it in the heat (or rather the cold) of the moment because I’d wanted to get out of there. And there’s no way I would have trusted his word that there were people nearby. He _was_ a demon, after all.

"You would’ve let me freeze to death if I hadn’t asked to come with you." I said stubbornly.

"If I recall correctly, you were positively begging me for anything but a little cold weather. And it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to dishonour our deal and kill you, now would it? You will die in ten years."

I stifled a laugh. Gentlemanly?

"You were going to leave me in the cold."

"Get over it."

With evey word he said, I started to hate him more. Then again, I shouldn’t have expected anything else from a demon. He stood studying me for a while, which made me quite uncomfortable.

“I will allow you the privilege of staying here and we’ll see how long you’ll be able to hang on in my presence. You listen to me, do what I tell you to do. Don’t like it, that’s a shame for you.”

“Bite me.” 

“If that’s your thing.” he raised his eyebrows slightly, smirked almost invisibly and turned his back on me, walking out the door.

“Why did I even have to sit in this chair”, I mumbled to myself, and stood up to move to the bed;

“ _Because,_ you do what I want from now on!” I heard from behind the door. Just to be sure, I sat back down in the chair. I wasn’t planning on taking any risks.

Well then. I really wasn’t in the mood to review anything that had been said, and my mind drifted to my condition in the ‘real’ world. I figured that if there was ever a time to go over my situation there, it would be now. Also, it wasn’t like there wasn’t anything else to do. If I ever got out of here, I might even want to write my story down, see if somebody would be interested. Maybe I could ask Crowley for something to write with (who was I even kidding, right?). I started to think of pretty much everything that had to do with me, _Ryan_ and his girlfriend.

What could I have done to avoid all the problems we got involved in? For starters, it might have been a good idea to _not_ do anything at all. Just pass him off as an attractive guy. But I had found that harder than you might think, see, because even though I didn’t like his name, Ryan was a good guy. Plus he’s a doctor, and that’s definitely a big plus in my book. He was handsome, charismatic and had a brilliant mind. At some point I saw him at least three times a week, so it was unavoidable that we became a kind of friends. As far as it could go professionally, at first. I then met his girlfriend (who was gorgeous, by the way), Jen, and she and I got along real well. We’d gone shopping a few times, gone out together. Stuff I would’ve done with any of my friends.

So I’d started to see Ryan more often as well, even outside of professional work-times. We had dinner with the three of us, watched movies together, became quite good friends in about 8 months or so. It was kind of frowned upon since Ryan and mine’s relation was supposed to be strictly professional, but there weren’t any rules against being friends.  

One evening, Jen had to go to her parents or something, and I just got out of the hospital for a check-up, and Ryan was done with work for the day. So I came over. We had a few drinks (more than a few, I had to admit to myself), and well, boy plus girl, one thing led to another and next I knew I was on the way back home in my small car overthinking everything. Even when looking back,  I couldn’t say it feels bad. I knew at the moment that it was _wrong_ , but it felt _right_. Kind of cliché, but I guess these things are cliché for a reason, right? Right. I remembered how it felt at the first contact we had. I remember how I felt when I left. There had been some guilt, but mostly I’d been happy. It’d been months since I’d been there and I can’t lie, it felt just right at the time.

“Tsk tsk. Leaving out huge parts of the story? It’s _much_ more exciting with all the juicy details in there.”

I sat up quickly, opening my eyes wide to see Crowley standing at the foot of the bed. He had his hands in his pockets, his eyebrows were raised. I had been silently muttering to myself while going over everything that had happened. I wondered how long he’d been standing there.

“I thought you’d be staying in the chair.”

Well I was tired from doing nothing all day and my back had started to ache from the uncomfortable chair. At some point, I’d moved to the bed to lie down and close my eyes. Helped loads with concentrating, as well.

“Figured my sob-story wasn’t really that interesting.” I said, ignoring the comment about the chair, thinking that if I did, he might forget.

“Take a seat, why don’t you?” he said, suggesting towards the chair with one hand.

Well then. I stood up and moved to the chair, which creaked when I sat down in it.

“Sob-story or not, I especially liked the parts where _Ryan_ started doing you little insurance-y favours, making sure you were always covered for. Oh, and let’s not forget about him being there for you every, _single,_ time when you doubted your existence, and when you went through all your little drama’s. I’ve a weakness for romance. Tell me how you experienced it.” he laughed and smirked at all the parts that suggested anything about that what I was trying to leave out of my life.

Sarcastic asshole.

“It was shit. I hurt them. That’s why I made a deal to make them happy, remember? And why the hell are you even so interested in me, anyway? You could have just let some other demon deal with me.”

He studied me, even took a step closer to me while he had his gaze fixed, looking me in the eyes. He said my full name for the first time;

“Miss Elaine Parker. You are aware that no human makes a deal for somebody else without getting _anything_ out of it for themselves? I can’t for the _life_ of me imagine why you’d want to do that” he laughed, as if I’d made some very stupid mistake according to his books. Obviously, he just didn’t have the emotional range I did (he was a demon, no surprise there), and he was just terribly confused as to why I’d agree to die for somebody’s happiness.

“Well I might not be the smartest, but I do have a heart. I regretted what I’d done, okay?”

“But to go so far as to _sell_ your _soul_? What’s in it for you, do you have some kind of plan? Is there anything I’m _missing_ here?” he gazed at me intently, his eyes squinted suspiciously.

“Just trying to think of some theories, of course” he straightened and took a step back again.

I’d kind of lost track of his story already, and stared at him blankly.

“My.. soul? What do you mean sell my soul? I thought we’d agreed I’d die in ten years”

“You die in ten years, I’ll have my pup come fetch you, to bring you to me. Standard Terms and Conditions, darling.” he smirked.

“WHAT” I stood up from my chair, which made a scraping noise as it moved back on the concrete floor. Deal or not, he hadn’t mentioned this before it was sealed. I hadn’t signed up for this. Damned if I was going to let this happen. I would not go to hell.

“You made a false deal with me!”

“My dear, I think you were just too self-absorbed to listen to what I had to say at the time. I clearly mentioned that you’d be picked up.” he sounded kind of different.

“YOU ASSHOLE!”

After a long silence I wondered if he was ever going to say something, but I realised I didn’t even care right now. He’d completely fucked me over, and I wouldn’t have it. Over my dead body.

“How can you even live with yourself, manipulating me like that. Haven’t you ever heard of manners? I mean you’re a fucking demon, but as you said yourself, you could at least have been a fucking gentleman about it! You can’t even make an honest deal, you bastard! I will not listen to you under ANY circumstances!”

I realised he’d been holding his temper, while I hadn’t. But now something snapped in him at my words, and he didn’t quite hold his temper any more. The only thing that went through my head was _oh, shit_ , when I saw an expression of rage on his face that I’d never seen on anybody before. Like, ever. And I doubted that I ever would, again, unless it would be him again. I physically flinched and moved back to steps, my eyes wide.

“Insult my person in whichever way you desire. Call me manipulative, I welcome that accusation with _open_ arms. Speak filthy words about my work, I could hardly care _less_.” I could feel the anger rising in him, his head growing redder. He took a few steps towards me, eerily calm.

“BUT, what _exactly_ did you expect, working with _DEMONS?_ I’ve been trying to _tolerate_ your stupidity, but it appears you need it _SPELLED OUT_ for you: YOU.” he pointed his index finger to my chest, then moved it to his own. “do MY BIDDING, or I’ll PERSONALLY _see to it_ you’ll be TORTURED, for EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE, UNTIL YOU DIE IN TEN YEARS, AND I’LL COME VISIT YOU PERSONALLY.” he flung his arm sideways and for a moment I thought he was going to hit me, but the chair that stood behind me flew through the air and crashed against the wall. “ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?”

I nodded very quickly, very carefully, afraid that anything I might do would set him off again. His eyes had gone rigid, and his body was tense. He soon recovered his usual calmness, though, and put his hands back into his pocket.

“Clean up this mess.” he said, referring to the chair. “I expect you to be ready to work tomorrow morning at 7. You have 10 hours until then.”

He quietly closed the door behind him as he left. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a bunch for reading again! The story is really starting to make progress (especially in my head), and eventually all the unexplained little things will become clearer. Like this affair that happened between Elaine and Ryan, what's up with that? How did they have a professional relationship involving work while she used to work at some clothing store at the mall? I should stop giving out these kind of hints, but I find that I like it too much.
> 
> Fun fact: I use random name generators to come up with names for characters like Ryan, and Jen. It works well! I'm personally thinking Elaine doesn't really live up to her name, as it feels like a kind of intelligent name. But hey, I can't just tell her to become smarter, can I? Elaine's just Elaine. (and we love her for it.. right?)
> 
> But first, let's see what kind of work Crowley has planned for Elaine. I really think I've got a nice idea; especially since we could all blow off some steam since that last part. Who saw that coming, eh? Crowley really is a bitch, I mean, he's a demon after all. Got some dark past brooding in the distance, I think. All bitter- and meanness.
> 
> Anyway, thanks again, and feel free to give any feedback or correct any mistakes I make! Staring at these words for a long time slowly eats at my ability to recognise weird sentences or off spelling. See you within another week with Chapter 5! <3


	5. Chapter 5

That night, after I cleaned up the mess as much as possible (since the chair had completely fallen apart from flying at the wall), I spent a long while thinking about how he’d lost his temper. Call me dumb if I hadn’t noticed that he was getting so annoyed with me that he exploded like that. But still to me it didn’t seem very appropriate to the situation either way. Couldn’t imagine there was something emotional behind it, him being a demon and all, so I was just left wondering. I fell asleep after that.

I was woken up by a loud banging on the door and sat up instantly, my back against the wall. I was still wearing the same clothes I had on when Crowley showed up in my apartment. By now they were quite dirty-looking, which wasn’t that bad, but their _smell_. Even if I wanted to, I probably wouldn’t be able to get a normal human being to touch me with a ten-foot pole, I smelled so rotten. Okay, I admit I might be exaggerating just a bit there, but still maybe my stink was part of the reason Crowley got so mad at me last night.

All kidding aside, I decided against my will in that it was better to get up immediately so I wouldn’t accidentally fall asleep again; didn’t want to do _anything_ to provoke Crowley again. Better just do what he says for now. And it was a good thing, because as soon I stood up the bald demon (at least, I was fairly sure that he was a demon) came in, and stood with his back to the open door, arms crossed. It was quite clear I had to go out the door. As soon as I passed him, specifically not looking him in the eyes because I was not about to get anybody annoyed at me right now, he growled with a deep voice;

“Left.”

That answered the question of where I had to go, since there was a door ahead of me and I could also go to the right. So I went left. Left led me up a staircase and I got to open the door all by myself, and if I hadn’t smelt so bad I might almost have felt as if I lived in this house. Because what I had initially thought was just a place to keep prisoners, turned out to be a house with a basement that kept prisoners. I shuddered to think what was on the right or behind that door back there.

I was surprised at the style of the place. I didn’t know whether Crowley lived there or anything but it must have been his to some extent. Again, I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but he had much more style than I’d imagined. I was brought to some kind of study in which stood a dark wooden desk and behind it was a bookcase with several books in it that looked as if they were ages old. There was also a fireplace in the room, with two red armchairs facing it. The demon told me to stay there and wait until Crowley came, and so I did.

I sat down in one of the chairs and stared at the empty fireplace for a bit before I got bored and stood up to see if there was anything interesting in the bookcase for me to look at. Most of the books were quite old and leather-bound, but I found a couple of paperbacks and picked one out. It was a black book with a mean-looking Santa Claus on the front. I wondered what the hell Crowley had it for, because it looked like a fake novel about the supernatural. I heard a door close somewhere in the distance, so I put the book back quickly and moved to the middle of the room and stood there awkwardly, waiting for the door to open.

Which it did, and Crowley walked in, bringing some clothes with him. He put them on the desk and turned to me, saying;

“Change.”

I picked up the clothes he’d brought. They were black and looked as if they came from the eighties. Not the nineteen-eighties, though, but more like the sixteen-eighties or something. There was a white apron with it. He had brought me _old-fashioned maid’s clothes_. Where the hell did he even get these?

“You want me to wear _this?_ ”

“Why, do you need some help getting in there? If not, get going. We haven’t got all day to play dress up.”

He smirked at me and put his hands into his pockets.

“Are you going to leave any time soon?”

“No.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. He was going to watch me undress? Guess I shouldn’t really be surprised at that. And I was happy to get out of my dirty clothes, anyway. It might have been nicer to get a shower before putting on these new clothes (if you could call them that), but I wasn’t really in any position to be picky right now. I was wearing an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I was lucky that I’d put on a bra on that morning at home, which made this much easier to do. I wasn’t ashamed of my body at all, but I was reluctant to take my clothes of in front of any random person, still. He probably didn’t even think of it that way, though.

So I put on the clothes. I looked like somebody who came straight out of a costume drama, and felt ridiculous. I looked at Crowley, who had this strange look on his face that didn’t really suit him. He was frowning, raised his head, then his eyebrows. He took his hands out of his pockets. It was then my turn to frown and ask,

“You okay? You look kind of...

odd.”

“Well, while we’re judging each other on our appearance, you look ridiculous. This outfit doesn’t seem to suit you.”

“Maybe because maid’s work doesn’t suit me? I wasn’t born to serve.”

“Sucks for you, darling, because that’s just what you’ll be doing for me. I want you to dust every room in this place.”

He wanted me to dust. I wondered how big this place was and how long this was going to take me, because I think I’d rather spend the rest of the day back in the cell. This was part of the reason why my apartment was always terribly messy. But I should be happy that at least he wasn’t angry at all anymore, so I didn’t have to worry about that.

I decided to just let go of the fact that everything was kind of weird, from the clothing to the fact that I had to act as Crowley’s servant. It wouldn’t get me anywhere but annoyed and that wasn’t going to help in making my life any better. And so I dusted.

The place was quite big, much more a mansion than it was a house.  
It had at least three sitting rooms, several offices, one huge dining room and about a dozen rooms that were locked and out of bounds for me. Naturally, I wanted to dust these rooms the most, but that just wasn’t going happen. Besides, I should probably be happy about that; you might never know what’s in there.

There were also a lot more people (probably all demons) there than I’d have expected, and it seemed that they were put there strategically to watch me and just generally guard the place. It made me feel oddly safe as I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if I were alone in there. Everything down to the carpets probably had a history and felt very creepy altogether.

At some point I was brought some food that was recognisable as tomato-soup with bread, which was a big step ahead of the odd concoction I’d been fed before. It wasn’t the best soup and bread in the world, but at that point it certainly felt like it.

After that, the time passed much faster and before I knew it, it was already dark. After today, I could certainly use some rest. I was dusting what must be one of the last rooms when Crowley appeared, hands in his pockets and shoulder leaning against the doorway.

"Had a good time today, I assume?"

I looked at him and sighed slightly. I was getting sick of the way he talked, and tired of having to find the right words to respond with. I just sticked with the truth.

"No, but the food was good"

He closed his eyes for a second, raising one eyebrow.

"You know, a while ago people wore those clothes all the time."

"I thought they might.. how long will I have to keep doing this?"

I didn’t want to float around the subject; I really wanted to know when I could go back to doing nothing.

"As long as it takes."

"As long as what takes?"

"That’s not your concern. Just be a good little girl and listen to what I tell you."

I was probably to him what a dog would be to me. Speaking of dogs, I had a dog when I was real young and I loved it, but it never listened to me and ran away. I hated that dog. A man’s best friend? I think not. It left a gift behind though; I was allergic to dogs ever since. He probably felt that way about humans, that we’re stubborn and annoying. Guess I couldn’t blame him completely, though that didn’t mean I liked him any more at all.

It seemed that I would be working like this for an undetermined amount of time.

"Can I go to sleep now?"

He raised his eyebrows, before he squinted his eyes and moved his head a bit. Then he smirked. I realised that he had a specific set of looks and physical reactions to things I said to him. Still I had no idea what he was thinking.

He answered;

"Oh, just a moment. Stay still, now."

He walked toward me slowly and then went to stand behind me. For a moment I didn’t even care, until I felt his breath in my neck and almost jumped because I hadn’t realised he’d been so close.

"No need to be afraid, darling. I’ll just need your clothes. Gotta be washed."

He undid the white ribbon that rested on my back and put one arm around me to take the apron off. Regardless of how bad I was at distinguishing his looks, I was almost one hundred percent sure he only did this to make me feel uncomfortable. And I was almost positively confirmed when he said, and I heard the tease in his voice,

"Feeling uncomfortable? I’m almost done, darling."

What the hell was he playing at? First the dusting, now trying to make me feel uncomfortable? I couldn’t say he’d failed completely, but I wondered what his goal was with all this.

He then undid a small zipper at my back and I stepped out of the rest of the outfit. I was now in my underwear, and noticed that my skin was quite dirty. Apparently that’s what he thought as well, because he then brought me to a bathroom and told me to shower.

"When you’re done, put on clean clothes and go to the basement. Let yourself into your room. I expect you to take less than half an hour to accomplish this. Think you can handle?"

"Yeah" I nodded slightly.

I just couldn’t figure him out. I barely even knew anything about him, but from what I had seen already he could be reasonably civil and quite terrible as well. Probably had something to do with his being a demon or something. Either way, I was stuck here and didn’t like that I couldn’t figure out what I could be expecting from him. Somehow it all felt like a stupid, semi-scary nightmare.

I took a cool shower because I didn’t want to worry about the steam, dried off and then opened several cupboards and found clean underwear and some comfortable clothes that I put on. I just did what Crowley said and went to the basement and let myself into my room. And that was that. Some days, I would have called this day quite uneventful but I’d actually done more than I had in weeks, even at my own home. Guess I’d really been letting myself down lately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end again! Took longer to upload than I'd expected, but I'm happy it's here any way.  
> Lots of thinking is done in this chapter, so it might seem a bit uneventful, but I promise that almost everything that Elaine or Crowley does is significant in the story sooner or later! 
> 
> Sorry for any mistakes, and feel free to point them out, so I can edit them out! Hoped you liked it, and thanks for reading <3


	6. Chapter 6

The same went on for three more days, except Crowley had gotten me another outfit, one that had pants and was much more comfortable to work in. I had to do the windows, sweep the floor, everything I had always despised doing at home. I was fed the same soup each time and got to shower in the same bathroom each night after I was done. I had a feeling I was just being kept busy so I wouldn’t be in my room all day; the guards were probably all over the place either way so I was watched automatically and nobody had to spend their time sitting at my door doing nothing.

I’d been keeping an eye on the clocks that hung around the place and it seems my ‘work’ ended at about seven each day. This meant I’d been doing about twelve hours of cleaning for four days in a row, which was more than I usually did in a couple of weeks. I guess I was lazier on my own in my apartment than when I was locked up in a demon’s place. I didn’t have to worry about food, shelter or paying my rent, there was nobody on my back about _anything_. They even put a glass of water next to my bed on the floor so I could have a drink before going to sleep. Come to think of it, this is what I’d wanted for ages.

But after four days, I had to admit I was already tired of it. I liked cleaning for my own sake a lot more than this, I started to get sick of lukewarm tomato soup and cold showers. Of course, the showers were my own doing, but if I took hot showers I would get breathing issues and I didn’t want to have to deal with that. Twelve hours of cleaning a day and I couldn’t do with any disabilities. I thought I was having to work hard enough already. I really needed the twelve hours of sleeping to gather energy for every next day, and so I went to bed immediately each time I got back to my room.

I’d been wondering all the time (trust me, four days were a long time when all you could do is clean) what the point even was to all of it. Did Crowley really just do it to see how long I’d hold on, just as he’d mentioned when I’d just gotten here? I couldn’t imagine putting all that time and effort in it myself, but then again he probably had all the time in the world, and I couldn’t figure out his motives anyway, so I wouldn’t understand unless he just told me. And that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

The last night, I fell asleep quickly like each night before, but I woke up all of a sudden in the middle of the night. It wasn’t too hot or cold in the room, I hadn’t been having a nightmare or weird dream to wake me up and I always slept very soundly so at first I was quite confused as to why I woke up like that. I was almost sure it wasn’t morning yet because I was still quite tired and I had only ever woken up because of the knocking on my door by the bald demon. But then I found out the reason I’d woken up. There was a distant but clearly distinguishable cry coming from somewhere in the house. It was full of pain, and it felt as if it went right through my bones. I’d heard people cry and whine in pain before, but this was a whole different level of suffering. I could hear it just by a scream, and that said something.

I got up quietly, wondering whether there was a guard at the door at night. I moved to the door and put my ear to it. It was a heavy wooden door with a metal lock on it that had a pretty big keyhole, which was my biggest chance of hearing anything. Still there was nothing to be heard, so I stood up straight and wondered what I could do. I could get back in bed and pretend as if nothing happened, I’d be fit enough to work another day and Crowley wouldn’t suspect that I might have heard anything. Or I could try the door, see if it was even locked at night since I’d never even heard it get locked or unlocked while I was in there. I’d be putting myself at risk, though, and I didn’t know what Crowley would do if I were caught wandering around at night.

I tried the door. It didn’t seem to be locked, so I opened it and stuck my head out carefully. First I saw was the door across the narrow hallway, then the rest of the hallway on my right. I knew the stairs were on the left so I checked that last. Nobody seemed to be there, and it was very dark. There were lamps on the ceiling, but they were off so it was too dark to see into the distance. I stepped back and closed the door. After walking back to the bed, I picked up the glass of water beside it and took a few sips. It was better to go to sleep and wait for tomorrow before doing anything. Nothing good had happened before when I’d acted on a whim, so I decided to use my head for once and just wait for a bit first. Besides, if someone was screaming it probably wasn’t because he was so alone, so it definitely wouldn’t be a good idea to go and see what was going on.

It took me a while to fall asleep again because my head was running with thoughts, but eventually I managed, only to wake up what felt like just an hour later by the now familiar banging on the door. It was harder than usual to open my eyes at first, with only a few moments of sleep less than usual. I imagined what I’d feel like if I _had_ gone to investigate last night, and felt happy that I hadn’t.

I felt a bit nervous all day and half jumped each time I saw someone even walking by, but tried to hide it as much as I could. At seven I started to move to the bathroom I’d been showering in for the past few days, and I found Crowley standing at the door there. He hadn’t been there waiting before so I immediately thought he suspected something, even though I had no idea how he would have known anything. Besides, it’s not as if anything had actually happened. Only thing I’d done was open the door for a couple of seconds. I wouldn’t call that anything to worry about. But I was careful and decided to just pretend like nothing had happened, and everything was the same as it was before. Which it kind of was, after all.

“How did you know I would be coming here?” I asked.

“You’ve been keeping an eye on the clock. Knew you’d be here at seven.”

It seemed the guards had really been keeping a close eye on me, closer than I’d noticed. This made me even more nervous, but I tried to hide it nonetheless. There was no real reason to panic.

“I.. eh, can I.. take a shower now?” I said, cursing myself because that did not sound as if I wasn’t panicking at all.

“I’ll need you to organize my books. Alphabetical order. Come with me, now, darling.”

Just as I thought my job couldn’t get worse, he was going to make me do something even more boring. Technically, I should be happy that the scream I’d heard last night hadn’t come from me and that I was being treated relatively well, but I guess I just couldn’t be satisfied with what I had. I followed Crowley to his study. When we got there, he snapped his fingers and a fire started in the fireplace. I had to admit this startled me a bit, though it was probably the most normal thing in the world for him. I still wasn’t completely used to the idea of being surrounded by demons; or at least I didn’t grasp what it really seemed to mean. Let’s hope I wouldn’t find out anytime soon.

“Take them all out, pile them up, put them back in. Simplest thing in the world, right? When you’re done, take that shower and go back to your room. Have fun.”

He smirked at me, turned around and left out the door. I sighed and looked at the bookcase, which covered just about the entire wall behind the desk. While it might be the simplest thing in the world, as Crowley put it, it would take me at least two hours before the books were back in again. And I’d probably have to get out at seven next morning any way so I needed to work fast if I wanted to get at least enough sleep to wake up. So I started, and did what he said. Took out the books, very carefully because I was terrified I might damage them. Most of them looked like they’d fall apart if I even thought of touching them, so this proved harder than you might think. Then they were mostly quite heavy, leather-bound books as well, so that helped in making it even more annoying to do. I just assumed I had to order by author’s name and about halfway I wondered if that was even right. I decided it was the most logical thing to do and if Crowley had wanted it otherwise, he would have said so. There were a series of books that were small, and paper-backed which stood out oddly between all the large, heavy ones. But hey, I wasn’t here to judge about how it looked and it wasn’t my problem.

When I was finally done, my arms ached and I felt so tired I almost decided to skip the shower, but realised my nightclothes would be in the bathroom so I went anyway. Since my muscles were sore, I turned up the heat for once and the warm water felt amazing on my shoulders. It might not be good for my lungs (or my skin, for that matter), but I decided that just one time wouldn’t do any harm. When I was done I put on the nightclothes, just a t-shirt and a pair of comfortable pants, and left the day’s clothes in the bathroom.

When I got back to my room, I sat down on the bed and thought over what had happened today. I came to the conclusion that aside from organizing the books, the day had been exactly the same as the ones before. I also realised that I was completely worn out, but I was still real curious as to where that cry I’d heard came from, why I had heard it and who it had been. I felt kind of sorry for them, but even more so, I was afraid that maybe that could be me. I really wanted to know why this person was in here, so I decided to wait whether I heard anything for a while. If I didn’t, it would mean it was safe to go look.

After what felt like ages, there had been no noises at all. If there had been sound, I would certainly have heard because it was so quiet I could hear a pin drop in the distance. I stood up and walked to the door the same way as I’d done the night before, and then put my ear to the door for just a moment. When I still didn’t hear anything at all, I opened it slowly and looked out. Nothing. I took a deep breath, breathed it out slowly and stepped out. After closing the door behind me, I stood still for a moment with my back to it. What the hell was I even doing?

I went to the right. Left was the staircase, and if the scream had come from the door across me it would have been a _lot_ louder. It was terribly dark, but I could still make my way down the small hallway. It was wide enough to fit two people in there next to each other, but not much more than that. I walked along the wall, my back still to it, and feeling with my right hand to see if there were any doors. It was freezing out here, but there was no way I would go back now.

Suddenly there was a squeaking noise from somewhere ahead, and I stopped dead in my tracks. If it hadn’t been so dark, I’m almost sure I would have seen small clouds of vapour forming in the air in front of me because it was so cold, and my breathing was getting heavier by the minute. This was funny considering the fact that all I’d done was walk along a wall, but there I was. I kept as quiet as I could, and heard a rustling noise that was much closer than the squeak I’d heard just seconds before. _Shit, shit, shit_ , I thought, and wondered what the hell I was hearing. So I chickened out and went back. What else was I going to do, get caught? No way. I walked back much quicker than I’d gone before, back to my own door. Just as I got there, something shot past the corner of my eye, and move under the door opposite my own. I could feel the adrenaline shoot through my body, but my brain realised there was no need for that. I’d been running from a damn _mouse_.

I felt like a bloody coward and got angry at myself for getting scared so easily. I wanted to know what had happened last night, and whether I should freak out because I might be on the list to be making the same kind of noises soon. So I went back. It wasn’t like I had anything to lose, after all. I kept the same pace I had when walking back before, making sure I didn’t make too much noise. There was no reason to go slowly because I knew I wouldn’t be running into any doors for at least a while. That while was probably not such a long way, but it felt longer because it was so quiet and I was still quite nervous.

Eventually, I found  a staircase that I noticed because the wall I had my back to stopped suddenly to make room for a crossing hallway. I now had three choices; go straight ahead and down this staircase that was even smaller than the hallway, go right, or go left. I opted for the staircase because I figured that since the sound had been so distant, it would make sense have come from another level altogether. I was unhappy to find out it was made of wood, and in a quiet place like this was it seemed like it could be heard throughout the whole house. There were no disturbances other than my footsteps on the stairs, and I got down quickly.

At the foot of the stairs, I had another choice to make; I could either go left or go right. This wasn’t a very hard choice, though. To the left was a large metal door that seemed to be opened just a tiny bit. To the right was more of the dark hallway I’d already seen enough of by now. So I decided to go to the left. After all, if I had a prisoner that I was going to hurt, I think I’d put him behind a metal door if I had one. And since the door was ajar, it wouldn’t be too much effort to open it. And so I did. It proved to be a bit more effort than I’d expected, because it turned out to be quite the heavy door. But I managed to push it open eventually and stepped inside a pitch-black room.

Compared to the hallway, it was quite warm and the air felt pleasant. It smelled a bit like metal in there, but that must have been because of the door. I felt on the left for a light-switch, and to my surprise I actually found one. So I switched it, and a light certainly turned on. That’s not the only thing that happened though, as I heard the metal door slam shut behind me. I panicked and tried to open it again using the switch, but all that happened was the light turning off.

“No!” I slammed a fist against the door and kicked it with my left foot. It was better not to have done that, because that hurt an awful lot.

“There’s a switch on the other side to open the door again” a young man’s voice said.

I looked up and turned around immediately and saw him sitting in a wooden chair, much like the one that stood in my room before it got smashed. He was bound to it with duct tape, which proved he wasn’t a demon, or else he would have been trapped differently. He must have been just human, like me. He had dried blood all over one side of his face, one of his eyes was blue and he seemed to have struggled against the tape quite a bit.

“Was it you? Last night, the screaming?”

“It’s already been that long? Felt like only a few hours since it happened. Who are you?” he answered. He looked worse than he sounded.

“I could ask you the exact same thing.”

“Let’s be fair, I’m the one tied up here and you don’t look like you’ve been tortured recently.”

“How do you know I’m not here to torture you? I could be a demon.”

“I suspect you might have known how to open that door if you were” he raised his eyebrows.

I smiled and looked down for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right. Are you okay? What made you scream so bad?”

“They pulled out my nails, burnt my chest. The rest you can see on my face.”

“Oh.. I’m sorry”

I looked at his face and while he was smiling, I could see in his eyes that he was hurt. He was still just a boy, couldn’t have been over eighteen.

“It’s not your fault. Can I ask you why you’re here?”

“I was looking for you, wanted to know why you’re here.”

“No, I mean.. what got you imprisoned here?”

“I made a stupid--”

“ _Shh!_ _Did you hear that?_ ” he whispered, interrupting me, his eyes wide.

 _“No, what did you hear?_ ”

I heard something too, now, and this time it sure wasn’t a mouse. I heard footsteps on what must have been the wooden staircase and my breathing stopped for a moment. I looked at the guy in the chair with open eyes and mouthed, _shit!_ I turned around a few times to see if there was any place to hide but it was pretty much hopeless. So I stood next to the door so when it opened, at least I wouldn’t be seen immediately. I heard some muttering, and then something scratching against the door for a bit; probably a key. And then it opened.

By the way it was pushed open so easily, I felt quite weak since it had taken me quite the effort.  

“So, Brian. Still haven’t decided to come clean, I hear? Not a very clever move.” it was Crowley.

I couldn’t see anything because Crowley had opened the door in a way that shielded me from the room, but I was almost sure ‘Brian’ was terrified. I know I would be if I’d been tortured by some demons and now confronted by the King of Hell. Brian didn’t say anything.

I tried my hardest to keep my breathing quiet, but it felt like the loudest sound in the world like now and I was afraid to even move an inch or Crowley might notice me. I closed my eyes to concentrate and lost track of their conversation for a while until I opened them again.

“You seem awful quiet today. Something on your mind? A disturbance in your peace, perhaps?”

“I --I don’t understand,” I heard Brian answer.

“Why, I believe you do understand.” I could imagine the look on his face, one eyebrow raised and a small, smug smile on his face. I heard slow footsteps and I realised I was doomed. I closed my eyes tight and heard the door move. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. After a while I opened my eyes slowly and looked at him. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, smiling at me.

“Hello, darling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit longer than the ones before, which I think is good because they all seemed very short once I'd uploaded them. They were all just over 3 pages in Word, which makes it look like they're much longer. But I'll try to write about 5 pages from now on, if I can make that. So you'll have more to read each chapter! This one's just over 5 pages long. :)
> 
> Let's think about this chapter for a moment. Some not so-good-choices were made by our main character! Sometimes I suspect she might have lost her brain at some point in her life, because she just doesn't seem too clever. It wouldn't be a problem, but since it gets her into trouble it's kind of sad. Poor thing. She got herself into this mess, though, to be fair. She just didn't think it through. 
> 
> We'll see next chapter how Crowley will deal with Elaine, and what is even up about her health? Because she keeps referring to it, but now we'll finally get at least some answers. I like pretending that I really really don't know. Also, dialogue is the hardest thing to write for me, I realise. This makes it more fun, though!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, feel free to comment or point out any mistakes as usual and thanks for reading <3


	7. Chapter 7

I sat upright in a wooden chair, my hands duct-taped to it, and I felt like Brian had looked. I hadn’t been tortured or anything, but I was afraid that might still come in the near future. The worst part was that I’d walked right into a trap set up to lure me in. My head was getting heavy from sleeplessness and I could barely keep my eyes open, let alone focus on the people that were in the room with me. I was in the same kind of room Brian had been in, strapped to the same kind of chair and in danger of being tortured in the same kind of ways. I was shivering because this room _was_ quite cold, unlike Brian’s.

I started to drift in and out of sleep after a while of just sitting there and it wasn’t the most pleasant sleep I’d experienced. Most of all, I wanted to stay awake to be aware of what was happening around me. This proved way too difficult and all I achieved was to keep my eyes open only for short periods of time before the sleepiness took over again. I kept seeing parts of dreams, then the room again, and then other parts of different dreams. All in all, it was very confusing and though it felt like time passed really slowly, I probably slept longer than I thought because each time I opened my eyes again, the people in the room were different people.

Eventually all I knew was there were people all the time. They were probably watching me and I wished I’d have had access to make-up, because I was sure I looked like a walking dead person. Besides that I was drenched in cold sweat and the shivering didn’t exactly improve anything. Deciding there was nothing I could do anyway, I let myself willingly drift off to sleep. I still kept waking up after that though.

After a while I wasn’t sleepy enough to drift off at all anymore and just sat there trying to entertain myself. Since all I could do was look at things in the room, that’s what I did. There were two guards, a light bulb above my head and a chair that I was sitting on. You can imagine how soon I was sick of sitting there. I should have just been happy with what I had before. That thought seemed to be crossing my mind more and more often these last few weeks but what was I going to do about it? It was too late now, anyway. I was afraid to think of what would happen when Crowley visited me.

He wasn’t the next person I saw, but as soon as that next person walked in I _did_ get kind of afraid. It appeared that I’d been fooled even more than I’d initially thought, because this person was Brian. If that was even his actual name. His face had ‘magically’ healed and all the blood was gone. He was now wearing a suit, like most of the demons, though it didn’t suit him very well. My mind raced, trying to come up with a happy explanation why he was here, but all I could think of was that I’d walked into a trap constructed specifically for me. I just decided to play stupid.

“Brian?”

“You’re just as foolish as the King said you would be, aren’t you? Isn’t it _obvious_ Crowley isn’t stupid enough to let this happen by accident? I didn’t believe him at first, when he said you’d walk right into my arms, but yet there you were, so fragile, so _human_.”

He said this with so much disdain it reminded me of the last time I’d made a mistake so big it affected how my life would be after that. The only difference was that I appeared to have learned to make it have effect on me alone, and not hurt other people by being stupid. Brian seemed quite affected with how stupid he thought I was, though, but that was his problem.

“I’ve been told some things about you and your life and I must say after hearing those things I wasn’t surprised you walked into this trap in hindsight. If there was one word to describe you with, it would have been _dumb_. Not even stupid, you’re just dumb. Acting on your _emotions_ , like a typical human. The funniest part is you _keep_ making the same mistake, don’t you. One might think you would have learned to damn well _think_ before doing something you weren’t allowed after that incident with your doctor.” he scoffed.

He continued speaking about my stupidity, walking around haughtily. He seemed to think a lot of himself and I lost his attention about half-way through. I know he was a demon, but even for Crowley this seemed a cruel guy to keep around. What had I ever done to him to make him hate me this much? I’d prefer Crowley’s company over this guy’s any day. Maybe I just really didn’t understand demons, though they seemed a lot like humans that just had an overall bad mood towards others.

How had he known about Ryan, though? Crowley had heard me muttering out loud for a bit and he might have heard the name, but that was it. Or at least that was what I remembered. I tried to think back a few days but everything seemed like one very long day in which I’d done nothing but _cleaning_ in this damn place. How many days had I been here now, really? Had Crowley realised this would happen beforehand? I wonder how much practice he’d had with confusing people to hell and back. For a moment I felt as annoyed with myself as Brian was.

I thought back to a couple of weeks ago when making a deal with a demon and dying in ten years definitely seemed worth helping two people out. Granted, it was me who had gotten those people into trouble, but what mattered was that I’d tried to make up for it. Next to that, like I’d told myself loads of times to make it seem more okay what I was doing, I wasn’t hopeful that I’d be living for ten years anyway. But with the position I was in now, I would rather have lived the rest of my life in that guilt than be here like this. I wondered whether Ryan and Jen thought the same, or if they’d rather see me in here with an angry demon yelling at me. Speaking of demons..

My attention was snapped back to the room and I realised the door was open: Crowley had joined us in the room. He was looking at me first, then turned to Brian, who said;

“Does she do that a lot? It doesn’t make her seem any brighter than she already is, the dumb--”

I still didn’t know whether Brian was actually his name, but it didn’t matter anyway. What mattered is that Crowley cut him off before saying what was sure to be an offensive word toward me and didn’t give him the attention he’d probably wanted. This made him seem quite annoyed at Crowley as well as at me.

 “That would be enough for today. I’ve left your payment at the door, don’t hesitate to leave immediately.” Crowley then directed his attention towards the two guards at the door. “Gentlemen.”

They left at Crowley’s word and even closed the door behind them. Crowley seemed content with them listening so well, while I was just concerned about what might happen to me with the door closed and Crowley in there with me. Because even though I’d choose Crowley to be in this room over Brian any day, I’d rather choose to be near neither of them.

He turned towards me slowly, his eyes focussed on mine.

“How did you know about Ryan?”

I wasn’t about to listen to any of his words before I’d been satisfied. I wanted to know how much he’d been digging up about me and my past.. how much he really knew about me.

“Ryan ‘first boyfriend ever’ Ryan? Or maybe Ryan ‘doctor’ Ryan? Or maybe some I haven’t been informed about? I’ve been wondering how you tell all of those boys apart. They’re all so alike.”

I stared at him. I probably still hadn’t grasped the complete situation here. Was there something I was missing? Did I meet him before and offend him, so he wanted to get back at me? If so, he was surely succeeding because I felt terrible at the moment. And I was annoyed by the fact that everybody was belittling me here. My boyfriends weren’t all the _same_ , I just fell for the same type.

“Why? And how? What have I ever done to make you so interested in me?”

He chuckled, his mouth closed and his eyes still aimed at me.

“Oh, you’re not that interesting, really. You don’t seem to have anything going on for me to worry about anything you’ll do to me. But I had to check before really knowing that, didn’t I? It wasn’t a real waste of time, though. You see, now I know what I can do to you without feeling guilty at all. It’s time to stop fooling around.”

By this time I didn’t even have to look at his face to know when his eyebrows went up and when the corner of his mouth moved. You can’t blame me though, with all the things that I’ve been allowed to do it’s just most interesting to look at faces. That didn’t help me in any way to understand what he’d said next. Maybe I shouldn’t ask any questions anymore, because every answer created even more questions. I still wanted them answered, though.

“Why would you feel guilty for doing anything to me? You’re a demon.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be answering any more of your questions tonight. From now on, we’re going to do it the good old way where the interrogator asks the questions. And where the interrogator might resort to other means than just verbal ones, should he not get the answers he desires.”

Well, I didn’t have anything to hide.

“Bring it on.”

“All right then. You seem eager to start.”

A smirk and a few steps later, I had a lot more interesting things to look at in the room than before. He’d walked to the left and opened what seemed to be a kind of closet wall which held some very scary-looking instruments. Things like small axes and big pliers even seemed the most friendly things hanging on the wall. I wasn’t planning on lying to him at all, but this did make me sweat a little bit more. I tried to keep telling myself it was going to be fine, just be Elaine and everything will be fine.

“Let’s just dive in, shall we? We both know you know what I’m talking about. How did you do it?”

“I… do what?”

He walked back and forth past the wall, probably trying to decide what instrument to use. There was something going on I wasn’t aware of and I better try to make a case for myself to postpone any physical pain as long as possible.

“I really don’t know! Please don’t hurt me, I’ll tell you anything I know!”

“Oh you’ll tell me anything you know, I don’t doubt that. I just want you to tell me more than _you_ know.”

There was definitely something I wasn’t aware of, right? Again, I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed but this seemed quite big and I couldn’t have missed it.

“But.. but.. I just don’t understand what you mean”

“Let’s take the approach we did with imaginary Brian, shall we? That seemed to spike your interest, for sure.”

He picked up a small set of pliers.

“No, no no no, please! Let me prove there’s no reason to do that!”

He then started pacing toward me.

“Just stop lying to me and you’ll be perfectly fine, won’t you.”

Another smirk appeared on his face. “Tell me, how long has it been since you saw _me_?”

How long has it been since I saw him? What the hell kind of question was that even. I breathed in deeply.. there was no real wrong way to answer it, at least not in my thinking. But then he seemed to be going on about something I had no idea about anyway, so I wondered if it made any sense to even try. But, hey, I didn’t particularly want to lose my fingernails so I spoke as much of the truth I could speak.

“The last time I saw you… was when you caught me? I don’t know when that was. Honest!”

He walked around me and I heard a scraping sound across the floor. When he appeared again in front of me it turned out that there had been a chair standing behind me all this time. He put it down and sat on it and then brought the instrument to my hands.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so so so so so sorry it took me SO long to update this one. It was a mean ending too, wasn't it? To make it hurt less, I promise I'll have the next one uploaded by tomorrow. 
> 
> I hope this was a good one! We discover a bit more about Elaine, what Crowley knows about her. I hinted a tiny bit toward what would be happening in the future but you probably won't see this or find out what it is.. unless you've taken a look inside my head! But seriously, I like teasing you. It'll keep you sharp! At least, I hope so. 
> 
> As always, feel free to comment, and please make me feel bad about taking so long because I definitely deserve that! Thanks for reading <3


	8. Chapter 8

I was practically a heap of tears, prayers, excuses and muttered sad words before Crowley even touched my hand. No damage had even been dealt but I damn well didn’t care how much of a coward I was if it was going to save me from getting my fingernails pulled off slowly and _very_ painfully. I was pleading like a child whose candy was about to be stolen by a very mean man, but it did get a reaction out of Crowley. He looked at my face curiously, his eyes squinted a bit. My eyes were wide open and I was looking back at him best as I could through all the tears that blurred my sight.

After a while of this I still didn’t feel any safer and my breathing was only getting more ragged because my lungs were starting to get quite annoyed. Breathing was getting harder and I broke eye contact when I threw my head back to find some new fresh air for my lungs to feast on. Immediately, though, Crowley grabbed my jaw with his right hand and pulled my head back down again. He looked into my eyes with a strange expression on his face. As far as panic went, this didn’t exactly improve it, but I just felt myself give up. If Crowley really had in his mind that I was withholding something, I wasn’t going to be able to convince him I was innocent.

“I don’t even have to do anything. You’ll just torture yourself thinking about me.” he smirked and put his hand back down.

I didn’t have anything to say. As far as fear of pain went, I must have been his easiest victim to date and considering his status as King of Hell, he must have been ages old and tortured quite the amount of people in his time. I did feel a bit weak but just tried to use that in my advantage; I looked him straight in the eyes.

“Please, don’t do this. I’m being honest with you. I swear.”

His smirk left his face, his eyes still lingering on my face. He sighed at me, then put the pliers on the floor and turned his attention to where my wrists were taped to the chair. I sighed, relieved that at least my fingernails would be safe for now.

“Come with me.” he said after he untied me.

I stood up, my legs trembling a bit, but I managed eventually and followed Crowley to the door. He opened and closed it again behind me when we’d passed. We continued to walk through lots of the halls I’d been sneaking through before, passing dark corners until we finally found a staircase. We then ended up in the hall where my room had been; I think it’d be safe to say this wasn’t my room any more. Then we went up the staircase next to the room and entered the house itself. It felt much warmer in there, even if it were just for the colours of the halls and the rugs on the floor.

We then went through some more halls, up one more staircase and through one more door. This door was locked, and it contained one of the rooms I hadn’t been allowed to go in when cleaning. First I’d suspected that these rooms were someplace where valuable things that had to do with the supernatural were kept. It turned out to actually be a bedroom.

It was quite the big place, as well. Like the study, it held a fireplace with two red armchairs facing it. It had bookcases covering the wall around it. The bed was made of a beautiful dark wood, and had floral patterns carved into it. There was another door in the room next to the one we used to come in; this had a small sign on it which read ‘bathroom’ in a pretty handwriting. It seemed quite obvious it would be a bathroom, but it did still add to the feel of the room (and rest of the house), which was altogether quite warm and beautiful. I wondered whether this was Crowley’s style, or whether he’d just bought it this way.

My eyes fell then fell onto a big wardrobe that was made of the same wood and carved in the same way the bed was. It was absolutely gorgeous and would perfectly hold my clothing, and probably even more. I wondered what was in it already. Was this Crowley’s bedroom? More importantly, do demons even sleep? Maybe this was just a guest’s room. Crowley turned toward me.

“Listen.

I don’t _care_ how you’ve got this going on,” he used his right index finger to indicate my face and I frowned at what he said.

“but I’ll have to test out a theory.” he finished.

I swallowed as soon as I put the pieces together.. which didn’t take me longer than a second. He’d brought me to a bedroom to ‘test out a theory’. While I was deciding on whether this theory would be a better alternative to my fingernails being pulled off, Crowley unbuttoned his jacket and put it on one of the armchairs. He then rolled his shirt-sleeves up to his elbows and turned the armchair around to sit in it, facing me. I had to admit, he had a certain charm. Whatever he made me do, I guess maybe it would definitely not be as bad as living without fingernails.

I sat down on the bed, myself, and took a deep breath, relieved I could comfortably sit down for a moment. I wondered how long this moment would last and what exactly Crowley would do to ruin it for me. I looked up and admired the ceiling, which was made out of dark wood as well. When I heard the clinking sound of glass I looked over at Crowley, who was pouring himself an amber liquid. Probably some sort of whiskey. He brought the glass up to his mouth, took quite the big sip and aimed his attention at me.

I looked back at him, and said a bit nervously,

“What do you want me to do?”

I actually had a very good idea of what he might want me to do.

“Open the wardrobe,”

Oh. What kinky stuff was he hiding in there? I’d expected that if there were something in there, it would all be suits for himself or something. What I’d also expected was that he’d tell me to take my clothes off. But I gladly walked toward the wardrobe and opened its wooden doors. Another surprise hit me as there wasn’t anything ‘sexy’ in there at all. It was filled with dresses. Not your average party or cocktail dresses, either, but they seemed ages old. The maid’s outfit that I’d had to wear a while back was in there as well.

 “They’re all yours. Pick out your favourite.”

What the hell was he planning to do? This definitely beat anything I’d expected so far, and the dresses were kind of beautiful, but for once I would have liked to do something I could _understand_. At least if he wanted to have sex with me I’d have known how to act. I went through the dresses and eventually chose a simple beige-coloured dress with some modest frills. There were some very fancy-coloured and -beaded dresses in the wardrobe as well. The expensive choice would definitely have fitted me, as well. But this one seemed pretty enough and matched my dark hair nicely.

“Interesting choice. Figured you’d go with something more expensive.”

It couldn’t be more than fifteen minutes ago I that was bawling my eyes out for fear I’d lose my nails and I was thoroughly confused about his motives.

“Why are you making me do this?” I asked.

“Don’t ask questions, that’s my job. You just do yours.” he took a second sip of his drink.

“I want to know what’s going on. Do you have a fetish for these things or something?” 

He put his glass down on the armchair and stood up.

“N-not that I’m not okay with that! I’m just curious, is all.”

No answer. He walked directly up to me, all the while staring at my face. Perhaps he wasn’t so bothered what I thought about him or any of his fetishes. Maybe I was just annoying him. I was still holding the dress when he stopped in front of me.

“Perhaps you would be grateful for some assistance? I understand it must be challenging to clothe yourself. Took you long enough last time, as well.”

“I can bloody well dress myself, thank you very much.” I wasn’t about to let him criticise me on my ability to dress myself.

I was just rewarded with another one of his smirks as he took a step closer and put his hands on my hips as I looked up at him. He was just that bit taller than me so he was much more intimidating from up close. His face was expressionless when he leaned in a bit. He then proceeded to _smell_ me, frowned and said;

“I thought it was just the smell of the dungeon, but why don’t you just take a shower first? Leave your clothes here.”

Well then. I knew I wasn’t too clean right now but it still wasn’t nice hearing it like that. It was my turn to frown, which I did as I stepped back and pulled off my shirt quickly and threw it onto the bed. Crowley then took another step toward me and didn’t hesitate a bit to do the same to my sweatpants. I wasn’t ashamed of myself at all because I knew I looked good and it wasn’t a new thing to me to have my pants taken off, but this sent shivers all over my body. Crowley threw the pants to the side and stood up, much closer to me this time.

As much as I tried to stay true to my character, I couldn’t help but be a bit aroused. I knew what he was like and he hadn’t exactly been an amazing host to me, but he really did have a certain charm. Something that definitely worked on me even though he wasn’t my type at all.

Next to this, he was also the first man (after the first boy) that I felt a bit uncomfortable with. He was much older than me and I didn’t know whatever it was I could expect from him. I wouldn’t let him notice if I could help it, though, and acted as natural as I could. He, on the other hand, seemed completely comfortable as he looked at my face. He didn’t even glance at my body once. Was he waiting for me to do something?

And so I stood there in my underwear, properly disturbed by the fact that my body didn’t seem to do anything to Crowley as he kept looking at my face, expressionless. I hated this. Any other time that I’d been with a man in my underwear, my body was usually the centre of attention. I didn’t know what to do. Time for a cold shower.

So I awkwardly removed myself from out of his sight and moved toward the bathroom. He didn’t say a word and I breathed a sigh of relief as I closed the door behind me. This relief didn’t last too long as there was a knock on the door and I opened it again.

“Might be a good plan to take the dress with you, don’t you agree? Oh, and don’t take too long.”

\---

When I was done showering, I used a hairdryer I found to dry my hair and then put on the dress. It was a lovely dress that fit and suited me well, but it felt ridiculous. I stepped out of the bathroom where Crowley was still enjoying his whiskey. He stood up.

“Why, don’t you look lovely, dear.” he teased.

I walked toward the middle of the room.

“What now?”

“Just stand there for a bit.”

He walked toward me again and this still didn’t  have any fewer effect on me than it did the first times. He continued to walk behind me and stopped for a moment, probably studying the dress. I felt a bit awkward playing dress-up for him, but the worst part was that he really seemed to think it was the most natural thing to do. He put a hand on my back and traced my spine with his fingers, sending shivers through me again. His hand then rested at the small of my back while he slowly made his way around me again and gave me a look that I was sure had the effect on me that I usually had on guys. A slight smirk, looking into my eyes, holding my back..

My breathing was getting heavier again, but this time it was more due to my confused excitement than anything else. Sure my body was reacting to him, but I tried reminding myself of what he’d done to me. He’d threatened to leave me in the freezing cold. Made me clean his damn house for days in a row and set a trap for goodness knows what reason. Come to think of it, next to his temper, maybe he wasn’t really such a bad guy.

He then walked me up to the side of the bed and sat me down. Out of a bedside cabinet he pulled one pair of handcuffs and to no avail, I tried to breathe calming. I’d never been tied up before.. He took my left hand and tied me up to the bedpost. Maybe these handcuffs would be a bit uncomfortable but I wasn’t living in a world where I expected him to make me feel comfy.

After this he continued where he’d left off touching me and I just forgot everything. He traced the patterns on the dress with his fingertips very gently as he looked at my face, studying my reaction to him. He pulled up the front of the dress until he could reach my upper legs with his hands, which he touched in the same teasing way. I had shared a bed with lots of men and even a woman once, but the anticipation he made me feel was something completely new to me, and it seemed as if it was straight out of a sexy fairy tale.

I’d always thought the way it was described in books was just some far-fetched idea, but apparently it was more achievable than I would have imagined. He then leaned in, his face much closer to mine than even before, and touched me through my underwear. I gasped a bit and my first reaction was to move my face closer to his, my hand on his shoulder, and try to touch my lips to his. He didn’t allow this, though, and pulled his head back. A smirk appeared on his face and he removed his hand from under my dress to stand up.

 “Like I mentioned before, I don’t even have to really do anything to have you torture yourself.”

With another smirk, he was out of the room and I was left flustered, alone and tied to a damn bedpost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should stop promising things if I can't keep said promise. I really needed more time on this one to get it right. It was about 2pm suddenly and I really needed my sleep!  
> Working on the next one immediately, though.
> 
> I liked writing this chapter, I hope you liked reading it as well :) 
> 
> I've been thinking of more and more plot things, especially how I'm going to fit all the things into the story, and this gets me very excited.  
> Feel free to comment or point out anything that seems weird and I'll take a look at it. Thanks for reading! <3


	9. Chapter 9

Fergus had basically spent all his free time near the Glencraig brewery for the last week. The whisky was cheaper to buy in bottles than it was in glasses at the pub, plus he didn’t have to worry about facing townsfolk. God, did he hate the quiet whisper that travelled through there when he sat down to order another drink. Another perk of not going there, was that no word would go back to the people he knew, so he never had to worry about a single thing. A few bottles would be drank each night and once he was in a pleasant buzz, thoughts of sorrow would leave his mind and make place for possible solutions for his problems.

He’d considered using hex bags, several spells or other manipulations with the knowledge he’d gained from living with his mother all his life, but he knew that no magic could truly achieve what he wanted. There was one method that would be fool proof, though, and ever since the idea crept up in his mind, he hadn’t been able to let go of it. Even during the day at working hours and at night in his dreams did the possibility haunt him. This might finally get him what he needed.

Of course, Fergus knew that even this wouldn’t get him what he needed immediately. But he was positively convinced that if he got the opportunity to prove himself over time, things would all work out perfectly. So he gathered what he needed and went out onto the road at midnight to find himself the nearest crossroads. After burying his small metal box, he stood back. Not even a minute later, he felt a presence near him and as he turned around, he saw a beautiful woman standing there. You might even say she looked _devilishly_ sexy, he thought to himself.

“Why hello  there, _Fergus_. We’ve been noticing you downstairs. You see, I don’t think you’ll need to make a deal with me to go to hell when you die..”

She smiled at him, but didn’t let her influence him in any way. She was probably right, considering his past and the way he’d been drinking lately. Hell or no hell, though, he needed to make this deal. He decided to get right to business, because there was nothing to gain with any pointless small talk.

“I don’t care about what you have to say to me. I just need to make this deal.”

“All right, then, love. What do you want me to give you? Is it wealth? Or do you maybe want _power_? I can give you a-ny-thing you want…” She walked closer to him, never losing her grin.

“I need a way to.. to get my love back.”

“Well.. that can be arranged for you. If that’s all?”

He nodded. He knew this was all he wanted.

\-------

After many frustrated sighs and attempts to get loose from the bed, I gave up and laid down face-up, staring at the ceiling. The change in environment was definitely better, but now I had only myself, and all I could do was argue with me. What the _hell_ had I been thinking? I mean, I can’t deny he has a certain charm, but he is and will always be a demon.

I awoke some time later and found the lights were all out. Had someone been in here? There was no clock so I couldn’t tell what time it was, and so whether I should be concerned. Either way, I was still tied to the damn bed and couldn’t have tried to investigate if I’d wanted to. Crowley probably realised I didn’t like to be stuck in one place knowing I didn’t have any freedom. And it was my own fault, considering I hadn’t exactly been too subtle in my actions since I first met him. After some more ceiling-staring, I decided to roll onto my side and continued staring at the night stand next to me. I spent some time trying to come up with arguments why Crowley was evil and I should just never look at him again, but to no avail.

After a while of thinking about him, I remembered him mentioning that he was going to test out a theory. I’d immediately assumed he’d brought me into the bedroom for sex, and my theory was almost proven correct, until the asshole tied me up and left me. Was this all going according to his plans? He didn’t strike me as the guy who’d have his plans and motives messed up in his head. So what was his goal, and what part did I play in it?

I didn’t have much time to go over this in my head because I was distracted by some noises somewhere in the house. It sounded as if furniture was being thrown around. Or maybe people? Whatever it was, I was becoming increasingly annoyed by the fact that each day Crowley had held me here, more and more questions popped up without any explanation. I’d never been in the dark for so long, even literally. Another bang definitely caught all my attention, because this time it was much closer to where I was.

Some dragging noises, muffled grunts and hushing later, the door opened and in stumbled a man. Now this guy caught my attention not just because he was the first moving thing I saw after Crowley, but especially because he was absolutely and gloriously naked. Also, his hands happened to be tied behind his back and he had a bag over his head.  Well, since Crowley left me here frustrated… But sadly, you only have to think of the devil and he appears.

Crowley walked in behind him and pushed the guy further into the room.

“Excuse me, love, but I have a toy to experiment on.”

Was he kidding me? Maybe this was all an elaborate prank to try and make me go crazy. You know, maybe he wasn't even a demon but somebody who just wanted to teach me a lesson: better not make deals with a devil! How lovely that would be. Unfortunately I knew this to be wrong, with all I’d seen so far. I decided to not let him know what I was feeling.

“What, you were so disgusted by me you turned gay?”

“Don’t be silly. There’s nothing that could _make_ me gay. And whether I am or not, who doesn't like a nice guy to look at? Figured you’d agree with me.”

Damn the fact that it was basically impossible to make a comment he couldn't turn right back around to make me feel dumb.

“So you don’t mind if I just strap him up here and start right away, do you?”

He tied the man up to the bedpost at the foot of the bed, took of his jacket and rolled up his shirt-sleeves like he had last time. He then proceeded to walk toward me and I could feel my heart beat faster. What the hell was he up to? The nerves must have shown on my face because he said-

“Don’t sweat. I just need something from the night stand.” he smirked at me and pulled open the drawer to get out a large spear-point knife.

I didn’t think my eyes could grow even larger, but here I was. I don’t know if I should be glad the knife wasn’t meant for me or terrified of the fact that he would probably use it on the guy. In a flash, I thought of asking for his name, but realised that would only make it worse. Poor him. Poor me.

“Now, this will only hurt for about how long it takes you to pass out from blood loss.” Crowley said as he walked back to the guy. He was tied to the bedpost in such a way that his back was to me, and so at first I could only hear the pain. And it was _horrible_. I now realised how stupid I had been to go after Brian’s screams, because they were nowhere near as real as this.

I put my hands over my ears as much as I could, being tied to the bed and all. I couldn’t bear to even keep my eyes open. But it didn’t help to try and ignore it. Not at all.

“ _Why are you doing this?!”_ I yelled.

He didn’t answer, though, and continued the torture. The screams quickly turned hoarse until all I could hear was a heavy panting. I dared open my eyes and saw that the guy had fallen to his knees, his head hanging forward.

“Don’t worry. We had a deal, him and I. Not the soul-collecting kind of deal, but something a bit more personal. He didn’t hold up his end, so I showed him the consequences.”

“Well, he didn’t have much to learn from that, now did he! And why’d you have to murder him in front of me?”

“Oh I didn’t kill him. Not physically, anyway. His spirit may be a bit damaged, but that’s exactly what we wanted, isn’t it? Next time, he won’t be so excited to double-cross me.” he smirked at me.

“Still, why here?” I started to say he was driving me crazy, but thought the better of it; that was probably exactly what he wanted.

Again he walked over to me, cleaning the blood off his knife with a white cloth. He opened the night stand once more and put the knife back. As I noticed how stained the cloth was, I realised I was lucky the guy had his back to me.

“Figured I might teach you both a lesson at the same time.” he answered.

“What, that I shouldn’t double-cross you? You know, last time I checked, you were being the bitch.”

For all I cared, he could go right back to hell. He didn’t have any business, trying to ‘teach me a lesson’, while all he did to me was fuck me up.

“No, that you shouldn’t _lie_ to me.”

Again with the suspiciousness. As much as I’d tried to figure out what the hell I’d done to deserve this distrust, I couldn’t come up with anything.

“I’ve told you nothing but the truth since I met you.”

“That’s what your mouth says. But, what I _see_ tells a completely different story.”

I stared at him blankly, no idea what he was going on about. I might as well give up trying to get him to believe me, because apparently he had something in his mind and there was no changing that. So I sighed, and said;

“Well, I don’t know what I did to make you feel this way. I do know that I need to go to the bathroom, if you would be so kind to let me go?”

He squinted his eyes at me for a moment. Then, as he moved to get me loose, I thought maybe he confused me with someone he’d met once. Maybe he suspected me of stuff I’d never even dream of doing. But that was a bit too far-fetched, I decided.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been ages, but I hope this chapter makes up for it at least a bit?  
> Hope you enjoyed it! It's a bit off filling, but an interesting plot-twist has finally been started :)  
> Next chapter will be up soon, I promise. 
> 
> If there's any mistakes, please tell me! Love you guys <3


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